


losing me at your fingertips

by teenageraccoon



Series: this time-bound conscience [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, ‘fuck’ can be used as punctuation when you’ve been tortured for seventy years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 03:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20771948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenageraccoon/pseuds/teenageraccoon
Summary: He'd considered eating, felt bile rise at the back of his throat at the idea alone, decided against it. Sat back down. And that’s where things go…fuzzy. Where he loses track. He hasn’t blacked out entirely, he remembers someone getting up and making coffee in the Keurig before sitting down next to him, and because he definitely doesn’t remember killing anyone between whenever he started to lose time and now, that someone must have been Steve.





	losing me at your fingertips

**Author's Note:**

> Standard trigger warning for talk of Hydra torture and non-descriptive mentions of vomiting.

A lot of things do, in fact, get better with time. Bucky’d been surprised by that, spent so much time with things getting progressively worse, where his fucking prolonged existence meant that Hydra just kept on coming up with new fucking methods of torture for Pierce’s experiment-turned-toy. Let him settle into a fucking routine, even the routine of electrocution or waterboarding or any of their more sadistically inventive techniques, and he’d start to find some sort of warped comfort in the continuity. Eventually he figured out that when he was awake, wasn’t locked in their fucking cryo-freezer, he would get a visit from someone pretty much daily. Rarely Pierce, more often one of his minions delegated to do the dirty work for him; God forbid Pierce dirty himself by breathing the same fucking air as Bucky. Breathe the same air on the days when they let his lungs do their function without significant interruption, didn’t gas his cell to the limit of survival or strap his head in a fucking tub of water, see how long it would take for him to tap out.

It’d started in the name of science. He doesn’t know the point at which he’d changed from their experiment into something for them to toy with, play around with, break to the point of nonfunctional and then break some more. Doesn’t know whether that’s because he blocked it out on his own, one of the strange fucking coping techniques that Steve said Natasha told him that brains do sometimes as a protective measure, or because they took that from him, too.

Point of the matter is, the longer he’s been back, been in the realm of Steve’s general existence (because he still can’t think of what he’s doing as fucking _living_, still fucking struggles to envision himself as a person as opposed to a fucking _asset_ on most days), the more things have gotten easier.

Like sleep, for starters. He still avoids it as much as possible, knows his upper-limit for sleep deprivation all too well, but it’s something that he can more or less…approach without inevitable harm. Can usually lay down and close his eyes for a while, upwards of an hour if he’s lucky, before the rotten shit starts seeping in around the edges of his brain. Starts fucking polluting one of his few moments of peace. And even if he still dreads actually closing his eyes and going to sleep instead of dozing on the couch in broad daylight, it’s something that he can at least trudge through. Knows that Steve will be there to talk him back to reality when the inevitable nightmares hit after hours of struggling to fall asleep.

It’d be funny, almost, in a demented sort of way, if he didn’t hate it so fucking much. Didn’t hate what it did to Steve even more than what it did to him, because there’s nothing fucking pleasant about having to coax a knife out of your best friend’s hand for the third fucking time in as many fucking days, Jesus fucking _Christ_, it’s a wonder that Rogers hasn’t put him out on the street yet.

Or, he thinks even more acidly, put him down. Put a bullet through his skull like he’d fucking begged Pierce to do once they’d broken him enough that he didn’t know his own name, didn’t know he was a human. Barely fucking was, and by strict definition only.

So sleep became…not easier, but less insurmountable. The same happened with bathing, grooming, and eating. Showers were still not an option and baths were a risk, too close to the imprinted memory of the waterboarding and whatever other fucking torture; he can’t remember what it was, but remembers the sensation of being submerged in freezing water for longer than he could tolerate before choking, inhaling it directly into his lungs, and then submerged in too-hot but not-quite-boiling water to bring him back to consciousness. Baths are toeing a thin fucking line, but they’re the better of the two, and most days he can get his brain to shut up for long enough that he can rinse off. Long enough that he can take a brush to his hair and yank out the tangles, run a razor over his face as quickly as he can without nicking skin. He’d hated the facial hair for as long as Hydra’d had him, but it was on the less-hated side of the spectrum, and he hadn’t spent as much time yelling at them about it as he had some other things. They hadn’t shaved him often, hadn’t needed to between the cryo sessions and forcing the muzzle onto him for an assignment, but the second that scratchy hair had started to poke through the surface of skin, he’d started trying to claw it off.

Broke through skin, a few times. A lot of times. Pierce hadn’t liked that, mostly, Bucky figures, because that was him expressing himself. Expressing an opinion. Even after they’d fried his brain so badly he couldn’t’ve told north from south with a fucking compass, he’d hated the facial hair.

So the solution was easy: shave. On his own fucking terms, terms which it took a lot of work for Steve to get him to understood _existed_, terms that he still doesn’t understand on some days. But he bathes and shaves and he brushes his teeth. All things humans do. All things _he_ does.

Eating is a thing he does too. Most days. With Steve’s endless nagging, until he gives in and snaps, “Fine, I’ll fucking eat, but you’re not going to fucking watch me fucking do it. And if I throw it up then I’m not eating more.” And Steve lets it go after that, knowing that the intonation and inward anger and curse word between every other means that Bucky’s probably going to follow through. Even if he hates every second of it. The foods are still bland, primarily consisting of white rice with whatever protein he can stomach at the time, or a sandwich with a minimal amount of lunch meat between white bread. Russian comfort foods, whenever he can handle anything a bit heavier. They're snacks, really, more than any actual meal, but he eats, and he can keep food down more than he used to, and the clatter of his plate in the sink afterwards makes sure Steve knows _there, I ate, I don’t want to hear about it for another twelve hours_.

He settles into a more-or-less reliable routine with it. Has bad days, still too many fucking bad days, still a majority of bad days, but he also has…okay days. Average days, for whatever value of average his life can ever be. He has bad days and okay days and, for the most part, things have gotten easier.

Mostly.

Today isn’t one of those instances.

Today he dragged himself out of bed – dragged himself off of the couch where he’d spent most of the night, too restless and twitchy to have a shot at getting any real sleep, told Steve _just because my night is completely fucking gone to fucking hell in a handbasket doesn’t mean that yours needs to be the same. Shut up, you're tired, you need to sleep. I’m fine_. And he hadn’t been fine, but he hadn’t been fine for as long as he could remember, which wasn’t really fucking long at all. Can’t remember even with the memories coming back in bits and pieces here, a more significant chunk over there, none of it lining up or falling into place or making any fucking _sense_ no matter how hard he works at getting it to. He’s still unsure which memories are real, which he can trust, and which of them his mind fucking fabricated in an attempt to patch over the days-weeks-months that had been fried away from his brain.

He decided not to fight it, for once, just dragged himself off the couch and poked his head into the bedroom (Steve’s bedroom, technically, but he sleeps there on the occasions he manages to sleep in a bed, so functionally, it’s _the_ bedroom) and made sure that Steve was okay and safe, breathing still light and even and unimpaired. Steve’d been up a few times throughout the night, checking in on Bucky in the living room before going back to sleep for another few hours, and Bucky would appreciate it if he didn’t feel so fucking…heavy. Like a fucking cargo ship anchor weighing down a fucking dingy. But Steve had kissed the top of his head and said “you know where to find me, Buck,” and left without any extra nagging about fucking circadian rhythms or sleep hygiene or any of the bullshit he’d managed to find and employ in coaxing Bucky to bed. So Bucky had checked in on him in return and moved on, staring at himself emptily in the bathroom mirror for a few seconds before flicking off the light—he doesn’t remember turning it on, which is the first warning sign that his brain intends to throw all the shit it possibly can at him today, but he somehow doesn’t make note of that—and traipsed back out into the living room. Considered eating, felt bile rise at the back of his throat at the idea alone, decided against it. Sat back down.

And that’s where things go…fuzzy. Where he loses track. He hasn’t blacked out entirely, he remembers someone getting up and making coffee in the Keurig before sitting down next to him, and because he definitely doesn’t remember killing anyone between whenever he started to lose time and now, that someone must have been Steve.

It doesn’t make sense, really. He’s cold and half naked and there’s a pounding at the back of his head, there’s fucking noise and yelling and Pierce is amongst all of it, voice the fucking worst out of all of them, volume never raised above a speaking level but still cruel. More cruel than yelling, maybe. Everything hurts; he sees a hand move towards him and flinches away violently, feels his head slam into the wall behind him. And it _is_ a wall, not bars of a cell, not a cage he’d been shoved in like a fucking dog, forced to stand for God fucking knows how many days, unable to move because the bars were wired with an electric current strong enough to harm even him. If he brushed them, that was bad enough, if his mind slipped enough for his body to end up fully leaning against them–

He shivers, jerks, but it’s still only a wall behind him, hard and firm and definitely not electrified. There’s someone in front of him still, not yelling, but the voice. He recognizes it. Knows it’s not Pierce, isn’t one of his cronies as far as Bucky can tell. Doesn’t know who it is, can’t identity it by voice alone. Knows the figure it belongs to, figure sitting in front of him, but can’t recognize them by appearance either. Closes his eyes, slams his head back again, hopes it knocks something loose.

“Bucky,” the person says. Calm. Not bait-calm, not luring him into a false sense of safety, just…calm. Collected. “You’re hurting yourself, Bucky.”

Bucky. A name. His name, he realizes, delayed, but they don’t call him Bucky here. Don’t call him anything, don’t speak to him except to reprimand, warn, punish, direct. But the name, it’s _his_, belongs to him. Identifies him. To the person in front of him, at least. He swallows, forces himself to make eye contact.

“Bucky,” they say again. “I’m going to sit behind you. I’m going to touch you but I won’t hurt you, never, _never _hurt you, you’re okay.” At the end of the sentence, Bucky realizes he’s shifted. Is now leaning against skin, surface firm but malleable, warm. A hand finds his and he doesn’t jerk away; it’s his left arm, registers pressure but not touch, at least not in the way his right does. He does flinch slightly, however, and the person behind him inhales sharply. Then exhales.

“You’re safe, Bucky,” they say. “You’re home and you’re safe.” And then, hesitantly, “Can you give me the gun?” Bucky frowns at the word _gun_, looks down at his left hand, sees the P-96 in his hand with his finger resting near the trigger. Not on, but near. Close enough that he could fire in a second, probably less, if prompted. He frowns and figures out how to make the plates in his arm release, let Steve take the pistol and–_Steve_, he thinks, you are with Steve and Steve is safe and you are safe and–

It doesn’t make any fucking _sense_.

The gun disappears for a moment and is handed back to him, magazine gone.

He tries to slam his head into the wall again and is met by a palm, gentle, bracing.

“Stop it, Buck.” Voice still calm, but firm. Steve. “I’m not letting you hurt yourself. Fight with me about it later when you can make an argument. You can stop, you are okay and you are safe and there is no one who is going to hurt you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.” And somehow, Bucky believes him. Barely knows him, who he is, but believes him anyway.

Bucky sighs. Hands, gentle, still too fucking gentle, pull his hair out of his face and tuck it behind his ears. But he doesn’t flinch this time, and he doesn’t have to fight the impulse to start pleading and apologizing quite as much as he did before.

“You’re cold, Buck,” Steve says and rubs at Bucky’s right shoulder. “I’m going to get you a blanket, okay?” The slight pressure on his shoulder is enough to get him to lean forward so Steve can get up and pad out of the room silently. Which is fine, up until it’s not.

Without Steve there, there’s nothing. Nothing to keep hold on the tenuous grip he was just regaining on reality, nothing to give him any sense of what reality fucking _is_, and that’s as far as his thoughts get before there’s bile rising in his throat for the fucking nth time today. He’s lost count, but can’t hold it back this time. He drops the semi and vaguely hears it hit the floor as he dashes for the bathroom and vomits into the toilet. He’s shivering, he thinks, and Steve is there again, and then he’s retching back over the toilet.

“It’s okay,” Steve says, fucking calm as fucking _ever _but sad, too. “Bucky, you haven’t eaten anything today or yesterday, there’s nothing else for you to throw up. Just come on, sit down, we can stay here for a little bit. It’s okay.” Steve eases him into a sitting position instead of up on his haunches, and Bucky goes with ease. Gives up all fucking fight, too tired, too fucking _everything _to have any resistance when he could just…not. He sits down and closes his eyes, leans his head against the tile wall but doesn't slam it there.

It’s the little fucking things, he thinks bitterly. Just trying to empty his body, instead of his fucking mind. God knows it’s not like he hasn’t had e-fucking-nough of that.

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, letting Steve fuss around. The toilet has been flushed, his mouth tastes vaguely minty, and Steve gives him a soft smile when Bucky finally looks up.

“You with me, Bucky?” he says, although he already knows the answer. Bucky nods anyways. “How are you?” The question is more for the sake of routine than anything else and Bucky knows that, too. Barks out a laugh anyways, manages to respond with “take a fucking guess,” and closes his eyes again.

“Do you need anything?” Bucky shakes his head. “Do you want to stay here?” Another shake, and Bucky doesn’t have the energy to open his eyes, but he suspects Steve is smiling a little. Suspects it enough that he’d put money on it. “Okay,” Steve says, standing up, which Bucky takes as his cue to do the same. Steve braces his forearm when he stumbles, careful not to grip, and that makes a whole other wave of despicable fucking thoughts wash through Bucky’s mind, clearing it of anything else like water washing away drawings in fucking sand.

He doesn’t have the energy to dwell on it. Doesn’t think he’d want to, even if he did, and then he snickers at how ‘want’ is still a foreign concept. Steve frowns at that but doesn’t ask, just guides Bucky into the bedroom. Bucky sits on his half of the bed (the half that Steve doesn’t sleep on, he corrects) and watches Steve as he moves about. Still fussy. Bucky wishes he was in the state to come up with a joke, because it’s something to tease Steve for, but Steve’s rarely fussy unless Bucky is like…this.

“You want a new shirt?” Steve asks, and that strikes Bucky as odd. He looks down and sees that his undershirt is ripped halfway down his chest, and he sighs. That at least explains the cold and half naked, _way_ too overexposed feeling that's clinging to the edges of his mind.

“Fuck’d I do to this one?” he says resentfully, stripping the shirt off as if it's personally offended him.

“Tore it,” Steve answers. As if that much isn’t fucking obvious. “Was up near your neck, you felt choked and wanted it away as fast as possible.” Bucky sighs again, but it’s more of a huff, less resigned and more agitated. Steve must pick up on it, because he’s quick to say, “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a shirt, we can get you another. We can get you thirty more and you can rip all of them. Doesn’t matter.” Steve sits down next to Bucky and takes the torn shirt and tosses it in the vague direction of the hamper, exchanging it for the one he just took from the drawer. Bucky pulls it on and scowls at himself. He glares at Steve afterwards, who just presses a kiss to his forehead and doesn't comment on Bucky's weak and wordless attempt to push him away.

“This is fucking stupid,” Bucky forces himself to say. “Fucking–you have _things_ to do, a fucking life, you shouldn’t be here fucking _worrying_.”

“Mm,” Steve says in idle acknowledgment as he gets into the other side of the bed. “All I have to do is tell Tony that whatever his idea of the week is, it’s bad. And that I can tell him over text, and so will Pepper and Banner, and Thor might make a visit to reiterate, depending on how bad an idea it is. So since they’ve got it under control, then no, Buck. I don’t have anywhere else to be but here.” His only-half-joking observation seemed to work, though, more or less, because Bucky snorts and then sighs “fuck” lightly and slips against the sheets until he’s properly laying down.

It’s light outside now, and it wasn’t when he last remembers time being something he grasped. It’s coming back, and he realizes he must have been gone for a while. Mentally checked out. He doesn’t really want to know how long it was, though.

“I try to shoot you?” he asks instead.

“Nope.”

“I try to gut you with a fucking knife?”

“Also no. No threats of bodily harm happened. You were scared, Buck, you thought I was going to hurt you and were confused when I didn’t. That’s all.” Bucky wants to laugh at that, too, _that’s all_, but they both know how much fucking worse it could be. So he doesn’t. “And now you’re not, and I can tell that you’re exhausted, so just let yourself rest. You’re allowed to rest.”

Bucky doesn’t really have anything to say to that. He knows he should argue, wants to argue, but he can’t find it in him. To drive his point in, Steve pulls the plush throw blanket over both of them, and somewhere in his mind, Bucky wonders how he managed to find a throw blanket big enough for both of them. Bucky's brain comes up with some acidic words about that, too, but Bucky resolutely resists saying them. Steve rests his hand on Bucky’s hip under the blanket, giving him enough time to pull away if he wants to, and then wraps an arm around his waist. Bucky doesn’t make a comment about how it’s the middle of the fucking day, or how Steve will fucking miss lunch if he stays here, or how he doesn’t need to be fucking watched. Because while all of those things are true, he also doesn’t really _want_ Steve to leave, and he can’t come up with a compelling reason to make him. He doesn’t want to spend more time thinking about it.

So he closes his eyes and lets Steve hold him and tries to fucking sleep. Just for a few hours.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr [here](http://teenageraccoon.tumblr.com)  



End file.
